VALUE-ADDED SWEETPOTATO PRODUCTS

Abstract

Nationally, about 97,900 acres of sweetpotatoes (Ipomoea batatas) were planted for 2001 with a yield of 156 cwt. Many of the sweetpotatoes are left in the field as unmarketable culls. A juicing technique used to produce a value-added product from the culls would be valuable to the sweetpotato farmer and the industry as a whole. This process would enable the farmers to turn an unmarketable product into a potentially profitable juice product. The research objective was to determine the usable yields of sweetpotato culls by extracting the juice. This would provide a value-added juice product for sweetpotato farmers. Juice would be easily transported and stored. Sweetpotato culls were collected, washed, and dried. Samples were chopped, weighed and processed with an automatic juice extractor (Juiceman Jr., Mount Prospect, Ill.). The extracted juice and remaining pulp were removed and weighed. Percent juice, pulp, and loss were calculated on a weight basis. Results showed that when processed with a grinding/centrifugal type juice extractor, an average of 53.6% of the initial weight from sweetpotato culls can be extracted as juice. Also, as the initial weight of the culls increased, the percent juice extracted increased. The combined solids collected from the extracted pulp and the pulp remaining after equipment disassembly was on average 42.66% of the initial weight. The unsalvageable percent of juice and pulp was on average 3.93%. These results suggest that sweetpotato culls yield about half of their original weight as juice. Juice extraction may be a viable option for processing non-market grade sweetpotato culls. Sweetpotato juice may be consumed as a beverage or combined with other juices to form a variety of juice blends.